Over 60,000 Albanians were issued residence permits by one of the EU’s 28 Member States for the first time in 2018. This number increased by 10,000 compared to 2017 and doubled when compared to 2013.
According to Eurostat’s 2013-2019 “Statistics on migration, residence permits, citizenship and asylum for the enlargement countries,” Albanians received the most number of residence permits from Italy (37%) and Greece (27%).
Almost half (48.8%) of the citizens of enlargement countries (Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo) who received citizenship of an EU Member State in 2017 were Albanians.
In 2017, 58,853 Albanians became EU citizens. Half of them received Greek citizenship, 46% received Italian citizenship, with the remaining 3.4% comprising all other EU Member States.
The number of Albanians who became citizens of an EU Member State in 2017 is twice the number of those who did so in 2012.
In 2018, 19,580 Albanians sought asylum in one of the EU’s Member States. This number has seen a significant decrease from 2015, when 66,145 Albanians were seeking asylum.
Nonetheless, Albanians comprise a third (~36%) of those seeking asylum in the EU. Of these, 42.2% have sought asylum in France, 16% in Greece, and 41.6% in one of the other EU Member States.
